


in the back of my mind (you play on repeat)

by twinfantasy



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Recreational Drug Use, i'll add necessary tags as i go :), this is the druggie au heehee, welcome to: defeating writer's block episode 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-04-12 01:04:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19121440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinfantasy/pseuds/twinfantasy
Summary: sana fucking hates jaebum for what he did to her. nayeon doesn't even know what happened, or why her friend group fell apart.one single fall semester can ruin everything - physically and metaphorically. and maybe a year later everything can be fixed.who knows?





	1. these are my friends

sana's thumb flicks over her lighter again. it flickers, barely, not enough fuel left in the rotten thing to keep it alive in the ferocious august winds. she fucking hates the fall. the crunch of the leaves sets her off and the crisp, cold air doesn't feel nice anymore. it only serves as a reminder to what happened. what shouldn't have happened. 

she scoffs and finds a nearby trashcan to chuck it into. reaching into her inside jacket pocket, fingers scraping by the little "sticker sheets" she kept hidden there, she grips another lighter and quickly lights it, deeming it good enough for now.

the joint that was inside her jeans' pocket finds its way to her lips and she lights it, heavy drags filling her lungs until there's nothing left but ash. she has nothing to worry about now, not the class she's skipping or the pain in her left hand or anything fucking else that could fuck with her day. the only thing sana really needed to focus on was the haze fogging up her brain, and the small smile creeping onto her face.

this was far better than any class she should've been in. she didn't care about grades in the first place and getting high was something easy, something to pass the time. it felt right for sana to be fucking up right outside the school building, hidden in a nook next to the dumpsters, like a raccoon kicked to the curb by its own family.

she's about to kick the dumpster with her bad leg when her phone buzzes in her pocket, alerting her to the presence of the outside world. looking at her screen makes her smile but all the same it makes her heart sad. she can't entirely fathom why but she doesn't care enough to figure it out anyway. she shoots a quick text back to the client who needed her most and slowly slid her back down the brick wall behind her, sinking until her ass hit the cement.

life wasn't fair or fun most days, but sana felt okay for right now, and that alone was enough.

  
  
jaebum laughs at something mark says, and so nayeon does the same. she doesn't want them to think she's spacing out or that she hates them. they're her friends. why would she hate them?

except, well, they're not her friends. not really. mark, yugyeom, mingyu, moonbin, even joohyun and sooyoung. they're all his friends, hers only because she's dating him. and she doesn't really know any of them. knows joohyun takes pity on her when jaebum goes a little overboard with the PDA, but that's about it.

it bores her to death. her entire existence is a performance she doesn't even enjoy. the only audience that's present doesn't care about her, only her role, and she can't please them.

she hates all of this. she's been so fucking lonely since the year started and she just wants her old friends back. the ones that deserted her after last fall and hadn't contacted her since. she still didn't know why. could she find out?

she had to. she had to do _something_. jaebum had been increasingly more annoying and possessive since everything fell apart, and she needed to get away from that, at least maybe for a little while. she loved him, but sometimes he was too much.

she whips out her phone and scrolls through her contacts for what feels like forever. texts the one person who she thinks will take her back. hopefully. 

she doesn't notice jaebum glaring at her phone. not that she usually did. she was blind to him.

just like always.

  
  
jihyo's phone buzzes and she tries to ignore it. goes back to editing jackson's article, fixing his tone and grammar. jackson always came across very opinionated in his writing, and while jihyo loved how powerful and right he was most of the time, the school newspaper had to be kept unbiased and poignant.

keeping her eyes focused on the screen is hard. especially when she keeps glancing at her phone, the text notification sitting there and waiting for her attention. the name that she hasn't heard or spoken of in so long popping up incessantly, reminding her of the past that she thought she'd forgotten about. 

jihyo wishes she left her phone in her bag. or behind the monitor. somewhere where she couldn't be tempted by making the bad decision of replying. but she couldn't help it. she _wanted_ to reply. she wanted to have faith that her old friend had turned around, changed for the better, maybe even had come to her senses.

doubt lingers in her heart, though, and she finds it difficult to do more than save her editing on jackson's article, pick her phone up, and sigh while staring at the notification blinking its way into her retinas.

 _nayeon._ that one name brings so much dread and happiness at once within her brain that it generates shock, her brain barely accepting that the older girl is finally getting back in touch with them.

“wow. someone's finally having a second awakening. or she's just stupid. i'm hoping it's the former.”

tzuyu glances up from her work, quickly returning her attention back to her article and typing rapidly on the keyboard in front of her.

“anyone we know?”

jihyo nods and stares at the notification. realizes tzuyu can't actually see her.

“yeah. a girl who got lost on her way to popularity and normality.”

tzuyu furrows her eyebrows and gives up on finishing her article, given that she's already beyond the due date. swivels in her rolling chair to face jihyo who's still eyeing her phone incredulously.

“we know pretty much the entire school. i could go into the hallway, snatch some random wandering girl, and she'd probably manage to fit that exact description," tzuyu says, glancing at the door to the outside hallway where she genuinely could do exactly what she said.

“it's nayeon.”

that briefly knocks the wind out of tzuyus lungs. now she understands why jihyo's staring at her phone.

“oh,” she sighs and closes her eyes, tilting backwards in her chair, “that's a name i didn't expect to hear today. or ever again, really.”

“yeah. me neither,” jihyo agrees, hopeless.

the air in the computer lab has suddenly thickened. no one can remember nayeon as she once was, no one but jihyo. all they can see is jaebum's girlfriend. because that's who she reduced herself to. that's almost all that nayeon was now.

and jihyo wanted to believe she was still the same, somewhere deep down in her heart. she wanted to so fucking badly. all jihyo wanted was her best friend back. her entire friend group back.

but she wouldn't let that burden weigh on her. it was nayeon's job to fix it. jihyo only had to give her a helping hand.

_old bitch: Hey_  
old bitch: Can we hang out? Like we used to :(  
jihyo: meet me after school. we can walk to my house. 

  
  
dahyun isn't sure what she expects to see when she walks into the yearbook club's room, but it isn't myoui mina and minatozaki sana having a trade-off in the corner while chaeyoung blatantly ignores it.

“guessing you're not here to join yearbook?” sana's ears perk at the sound of her voice, her head turning slightly towards the door. apparently she's too far gone to care about dahyun's presence. she simply returns to her exchange with mina, stuffing money into her wallet while mina shoves a ziploc bag into her pocket.

“not quite, sunshine,” the older girl drawls, the sarcasm dripping from her words.

“they'll be gone in a minute. let it happen,” chaeyoung projects, not moving an inch.

dahyun snaps her eyes to chaeyoung’s body. she looks like a ghost. her body's silhouette is illuminated by the sun and she's so fragile and pale in the light that if anything touched her, dahyun's afraid she'd shatter.

but her voice is strong and she's keeping her eyes on the campus outside the window, preventing dahyun from saying anything. instead she watches sana push her wallet back into her jacket pocket and mina smile dopily at her.

“this is it, huh? first time i see you in a year and you're dealing drugs to one of our friends,” dahyun spits, straight at sana's crooked form.

sana shrugs and pulls her jacket further around her chest, “yep. i don't know what you want from me, dude.”

“i want you to be my friend again. i want to see you back in this room, not because you're doing drug deals, but because you're our star soccer player and—” sana interrupts her before she can finish, fire behind her dark brown eyes and venom on her tongue.

“okay, i don't know where the fuck you've been, but i haven't played soccer since last fall. i broke my knee and mangled my goddamn wrists. momo is the star soccer player. not. me.” she punctuates the last two words by shoving herself out of the room, pushing past dahyun and hobbling into the hallway.

mina sighs from the other side of the room, meandering over to the door where dahyun stands stock still. she's scared and terrified and worried all at once. mina's face gives away that she couldn't care less.

“don't do that,” the sleepy girl tells her.

“do what?” dahyun asks, sincerely puzzled.

“talk to her. she doesn't like that.”

and with that, mina exits the room, slinking out and disappearing as fast as she appeared. dahyun can only stare at her back as she shakes off the effect sana's words had on her. how mina's words rang repeatedly in her head until it felt like a bell being slammed by a kid with endless energy.

dahyun feels like crying. she just might. but chaeyoung's there, wrapping her arms around dahyun before any tears can escape her eyes. she twitches instead, the furious and sad energy needing to leave her somehow.

“i told you to let it happen. why do you hurt yourself?” chaeyoung asks, staring at the older's broken face.

dahyun shakes her head until she's dizzy. she doesn't know why. she doesn't.  
  
  
  
momo kicks the ball with all the force in her leg. follows it as it soars through the air, striking their goalie right in the chest, thumping against their ribs.

the goalie who she despises, despite not being involved in anything. the goalie who took sana's place.

she does it repeatedly. dribbles and kicks the ball until the muscles in her legs heave and throb with exhaustion, her lungs begging for oxygen and not finding it. sweat trickles down her forehead and coats her tanned skin. the sun beats down on her while the breeze keeps her cool.

she doesn't love it, but it's all she's good at. so her eyes lock on the ball and her feet keep up with it, ears listening for the whistle and body dodging teammates.

eventually she collides with a freshman, who's petrified and can't look momo in the eye. it's almost laughable, but she helps them back up with a kind smile. sets her face into a permanent wide grin.

this is the first season she has to play without sana. she can't have anymore slip ups. not one. not even during practice. there is no leniency in store for momo and momo no longer has any leniency left for the world.

she will not hesitate to hurt anyone who hurts her, or sana, or anyone else she loves. maybe that's a bit of a violent outlook for a star soccer player, but she can't help it. their cursed fucking shithole of a school had plagued her forgiving heart and now she only had vengeance and pain stuck in the frontal lobe of her brain. it itched for revenge and yet she was too kind for that. the only aggressive thing about her was her athletic ability, nothing more.

momo wished senior year would pass by faster. her first month couldn't have been going by any slower. she felt like she was decaying without sana by her side. it was pitiful, but she really only enjoyed soccer because sana was there.

now she didn't even have that.

didn't have her.

legs pulled her forward until she punted the ball into the stomach of another girl on her team. coach blows the whistle, glares at her, points to the bench. momo sits down while she gulps greedily from her water bottle, wiping the sweat off her face with the bottom of her shirt.

star player of their team, yet she spent more time on the bench than some of the freshman.

momo was truly broken. and she knew it, too.

  
  
films were meant to be experienced, not watched in a crowded classroom with children who couldn't care less. jeongyeon ran the film club and yet she was the only one who actually cared about the movies she put on for the rest of her onlookers, the only one who truly payed attention to anything on the screen.

she's bored and a little irritated. mina's been gone for way too long, but she reminds herself that's normal. mina never comes back within 20 minutes. usually about 40, especially if it's a "bathroom break".

speak of the devil. mina walks back into the room with a familiar haze clouding her eyes, the whites of her eyes tinted pink. jeongyeon rolls her eyes at the girl and watches as she slumps over to jeongyeon's desk, hopping up onto it with her and almost falling off in the process.

"y'know, you don't have to lie to me about where you go, or why," jeongyeon explains, voice slightly above a whisper.

mina simply nods, a small smile on her disconnected face. jeongyeon understands that she's not fully there with her, but she needs someone to talk to, someone to feel real next to. this is as close as she can get right now.

"you say that but uh," mina starts, scratching her nose with the sleeve of her hoodie, "i remember what happened. you sided with jaebum at first. you didn't think, did you?" she says this out of fucking nowhere, and jeongyeon can't breathe. can't think past her own selfishness from almost a year ago now.

"w-what? what does that have to do with this?" she asks, stuttering, tongue grasping at words like a hand with no fingers.

"you know exactly what it has to do with this, yoo. i can't trust you. no one can, not really." mina stops for a second, looks out the window. finds birds sitting there, chipping at each other with their beaks. are they fighting, or is it all play? what does jeongyeon think this exchange between them is?

mina's not even sure what their conversation is about. she just knows she's talking, and there's words coming out, and they must be making some inkling of sense because jeongyeon seems like she knows what to say. mina decides this is good enough, and keeps opening her mouth, because while she may not know what to say, her heart sure does and it's got reigns controlling her tongue.

"the longer this movie goes on, the longer i'm reminded that you don't know me. and you may never actually know me. isn't that weird? all because you wanted to stay next to nayeon." mina keeps mumbling after that, eyes trailing to the window, the birds still chirping and fighting and bleeding.

mina's not sure if the blood is really there. she'd know if she could touch it. her arm reaches out, but it drops halfway there, and she gives up. too much work.

on the other hand, jeongyeon starts twitching. something within her head has cracked, and it might have been her skull, she can't tell. the only thing she knows is that she wants mina to go away and stop talking like she knows everything. she thought she wanted someone to talk to, someone real, but mina was not real. mina was barely human right now.

"stop talking like you know me. i don't know you, you don't know me, that's it-"

"but we used to know each other! we used to! you fucked that!" mina's not even looking at her, but her words are loud, and they cut right through the room.

everyone's staring at them, and jeongyeon can't take it. wouldn't want to if she was able to stand it.

she stands up, glares at mina's swaying body, and takes off into the hallway. the club will figure out how to turn the film off, where to put the laptop and the projector.

jeongyeon has other things to attend to. jeongyeon has to be alone now.

all alone.

  
  
"you need to go before she gets here. i'm not letting you both hurt each other." jihyo's voice is tender, but demanding when she says this to the hooded girl in front of her. the girl shrugs and looks off to the hallway adjacent to them, making sure she has time to leave before anyone approaches.

"ha. you think seeing me hurts her? funny. i'd be lucky if she remembers who i am at all." sana's voice is gravel in comparison, rough and gritty.

jihyo sighs, staring into sana's dark eyes, "she's not stupid. i doubt she's forgotten about you." sana scoffs at that, clearly unimpressed.

"yeah, that's the problem here. she's _too_ smart. it would be the best decision to forget me. it's easier to erase me from her memory than to think anyone else caused our fallout. i'm the easy one to blame and then forget because i'm the fucked up, drug dealing loser."

"you know that's not all true," jihyo replies, and she means it. sana's not a bad person. she's good. she just does questionable things with her life, although jihyo's not one to judge.

"it's close enough. anyway, i gotta go. i'm not gonna stand here and watch your beautifully fated reunion burn down like pompeii." sana's about to turn and go home, but then there's a noise. footsteps. and the voice that she avoided for so long. the face she never thought she'd see again.

"jihyo! who's your friend?" and her footsteps get closer as sana's heartbeat doubles, triples. she didn't want to see nayeon ever again. or hear her. she wanted to graduate and be done with it. be done with her.

god had decided sana needed to suffer more. today. last fall wasn't enough, apparently.

"i - i can't. gonna leave." but she can't mutter fast enough to run herself away from the unnerving situation, and sure enough, nayeon's footsteps stop entirely. sana can't hear her own thoughts over her breathing, and the sound of her breath and her lungs clawing at her ribs for oxygen takes up her whole conscious.

"jihyo?" nayeon asks, confused and clearly taken aback. sana's shaking and jihyo feels like a complete outsider to the event furling out in front of her.

she puts a hand on sana's shoulder, her eyes jolting up to stare into jihyo's. jihyo can physically see all the fear swimming in her eyes, anxiety floating along waves in her irises. she tries to ground sana but it doesn't work, she can't exactly get her to focus, and sana's eyes flash to nayeon's.

it seems like hours before either of them can rip their eyes off each other. and it hurts jihyo to watch. but she can't do a fucking thing about it. she can't.

this is not the day that sana will have nayeon's name drip off her tongue with a fearful fervor. she will not utter a thing. the only speaking they will do will be with their eyes and their eye contact alone. and nayeon will understand. she has to. at least sana thinks she has to.

she's not sure if it's been too long for the nayeon she knew to still exist. she might be gone. she can't find it in herself to care right now. sana has to fucking go. leave.

and so her eyes roll back to jihyo and they share a moment of clarity, in which sana is confident jihyo knows how she feels about nayeon and reunion, and then she books it. stumbles off with her hoodie masquerading her face in shade. in shame.

and jihyo has nothing to say to nayeon at the time. she simply motions for nayeon to follow her out the front doors of the school, down the pavement walkways, to the street that will eventually lead them home.

and nayeon couldn't utter a thing if she needed to. that was sana. that was really her.

and she was still beautiful.


	2. laundry day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> find it within yourself to forgive. just maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every time i write my style changes, so here's this, hopefully it makes sense :D

sana's back hits her door with the strength of king kong. it rattles her spine, tremors moving up and down her body, quaking wavelengths along her vertebrae. her bag slips from her shoulders and hits the ground like a boulder, her body collapsing on her bed the exact same way.

everything hurts. seeing nayeon hurt more than she could ever imagine it would. she saw her fleetingly in the halls sometimes, sure, but actually having nayeon acknowledge her, actually _see_ her. that was too much. and it made her heart yearn for a time that no longer existed.

it was useless pain and yet her body made her feel it. she wants to disconnect her heart from her body. rip it out from her rib cage and let it flop around on her carpet like a fish out of water.

and her legs are in genuine, physical pain. she sprinted to get away from the school, away from jihyo, away from her nightmares. now her knee is throbbing. just fucking great.

she pulls her bad leg up to her chest, cradles it against her as she rocks gently back and forth. she's calmer than she was, but there's a subsiding anger that boils within her. apparently, that anger is flaring up in her knee. she deserves the pain, though. sana knew how bad of a state she was in. she should've been more careful. careful is just very hard for her.

there's homework piled in her bag that she should be at least trying to do, but she can't bring herself to do it, or get anywhere near it. she knows that when she tries writing her hands will ignite in flames, completely and utterly in pain. she won't have that today. not now.

rolling her body over, sana rests her head on her pillow, and closes her eyes.

her pillow still smells vaguely of nayeon.

sana hates herself when she falls asleep.

"so, how have you been?" jihyo asks, feet in step with nayeon's.

"i'm alright. it's been a weird year." 

jihyo snickers momentarily, answering the older girl as calmly as can be, "yeah, i bet."

and then there's pure silence wading between them. it's thick, full of tension that neither is really willing to break, but jihyo hates the quiet more than anything else on the earth.

"well, this couldn't be any more awkward," she says plainly, and it catches nayeon off guard almost completely.

"i'm sorry --"

"don't be. i don't need your apologies."

nayeon cowers into herself at those words and jihyo sighs, taking the older girl's hand, gripping it firmly, yet soft.

they walk like that all the way to jihyo's apartment, the familiar residence eerily quiet. nayeon's not used to it ever being this empty, but apparently jihyo has grown accustomed to it.

everything feels off to nayeon. she thought that maybe being with jihyo like they used to would bring back a sense of normalcy. instead she was gifted a whole new environment and a stranger, as well as that stranger's house.

she's out of place. she never used to feel like this.

"make yourself at home, miss im," jihyo quips, quirking an eyebrow up at nayeon's timid form as she herself crashes into the couch. she stands there like a scarecrow about to get plucked. why is she the one who doesn't feel safe? she doesn't have the right.

"stop. stop it with all the formality. it makes you seem farther away than you are."

jihyo sits up at this, her body stiffening automatically in response, "oh, yeah? then how far away are you, huh? refusing to even look at half of us because of some meathead loser."

nayeon shakes her head like a wet dog. "what are you talking about? who is 'us'?"

and jihyo can feel something inside of her snap free from the tension.

" _us_. your _friends_. y'know, me, tzuyu, momo? remember jeongyeon, or -- or mina? dahyun and chaeyoung who adored you ever so much? how about sana, yeah, do you even think about her?"

"of course i think about her!" nayeon shrieks, and it makes jihyo back off, if only for a second, "i think about her every goddamn day! i miss all of you so much that i tried, god, i'm trying as we speak just to get to know you again. and you're making that really fucking difficult, especially if you don't want my apologies, because then i don't know what you want."

jihyo sighs, eyes softening at the sight of nayeon being so angry and confused, her entire will collapsing under that stare. she can't blame nayeon. she can't. it really isn't her fault. things happened around her, and sadly, she was just at the center of it.

"i don't need anything, nayeon. if you think about her so much, then you'd know who wants your apologies. or who needs them, anyway."

jihyo rests her head in her hands and feels her heart shake and tremble within her. it hurts to even be around nayeon, but she knows trying is more than anyone else has ever done for her since last fall. she has to try. it's the least she can do.

"come here, nerd," and nayeon allows herself to trust jihyo, sitting next to her on the couch, both of them closer than they've been in a while, "i'm sorry. for a lot of things."

nayeon shrugs in response, her eyes glued to the clock on the wall, watching the time tick by. "can you... what happened... why?"

she stumbles through her sentence, a verbal train wreck, because her mind can't focus on what's important. only the time passing by. tick. tock. tick. tock.

"i can't tell you that, nay. you know that." and this frustrates nayeon, hurts jihyo more than they could think of. it's too sensitive a topic.

no one talks about what happened last fall besides sana. and even then sana doesn't talk about it. it's not something that anyone needs to know, or that anyone should ever know about, but jihyo was lucky enough to be sana's only lasting friend that she trusted.

and now jihyo hated jaebum more than she ever thought she could.

"if you want answers, then find them. just look in the right places. or the right people."

nayeon's head shakes momentarily before she gives in to nodding. a small smile graces her face. it brings a new light to jihyo's eyes.

"yeah, i hear you. can we watch something now? i don't wanna be stuck talking about deep shit all my life."

at that jihyo snickers, grabbing the remote off the coffee table and turning on some random movie for them to make fun of.

just like old times.

momo finds herself sprawled out on mina's bed, taking up one of the stoner's many comfortable seats. speaking of, mina's lighting a blunt on the other side of the room, window open and allowing the smoke to commit prison break. it almost makes momo sad. she wishes she were that smoke, finding home in the clouds, among the pollen and the birds.

instead of being painless and flying, she's grounded, and hurting. her legs are sore as hell and her conscious is heavy. she didn't do anything that bad, but her heart hasn't been the same since sana left her, and guilt comes easier and easier these days.

she knows mina still keeps in contact with her. maybe she can get her best friend back? momo doesn't even know what she did to lose her. most of them don't.

"how's sana?" she asks, honest and too tired to be subtle. mina's too far gone to be caught off guard so she just shrugs, the question rolling off her shoulders.

"fine. stand off-ish as usual."

"she was never stand off-ish when i knew her. she was always friendly." and mina shrugs again, words dripping honey down her honeycomb face.

"maybe you didn't know her."

and momo almost becomes feral at the words, almost stands up and hurls a chair across the room, almost bashes mina's head in for having the gall to say that to her.

but she doesn't. she holds herself down, pulls her own leash back, tugs on her crushing windpipe until she can't breathe. keeps herself from being the thing she's so scared of becoming.

a monster. a bloody, rotten-toothed beast. that is not all momo is and that is not all she will be.

so she swallows her words and feels her pride shrink and cower down her spine. she breathes out ragged and broken air. shrugs her own shoulders, as if she can inherit mina's nonchalance that easily.

"yeah. maybe i didn't." maybe she still needs to get to know her. maybe she still needs to get to know herself.

sana's phone won't stop buzzing. someone wants her. needs her.

and yet she knows it's not the one person she's waiting for.

so her phone keeps buzzing. and she keeps burying her face deeper in her pillow, hoping it'll bring her closure.

jeongyeon tries to forget mina's haunting words as best she can. she distracts herself with the kids who love her, who never knew her motives or her choices involved with nayeon, who accept her for the film nerd she is.

"god, you suck at mario kart." chaeyoung remarks, throwing a smirk dahyun's way.

"hey, it's not my fault you guys cheat! i play by the rules, losers." this makes tzuyu, chaeng, and jeongyeon all laugh. dahyun could not play video games if she wanted to, but she tried, and it made them all much happier.

"and we play by our own rules. suck it, loser." jeongyeon says, sticking her tongue out at dahyun and aggravating the younger girl further.

it's entertaining, and it takes all their minds off their current issues, like homework and drug dealers and nayeon.

everything would cave in on top of them if it weren't for each other. they were lucky to all still be close.

"jeong, don't you usually hang out with mina after school? what happened to that?" tzuyu asks, eyes still focused on the screen. she drives better as toad than as any other character. it's freaky.

there's no easy answer to that question. does she lie and say mina ditched her? tell them the truth, that she had been fully seen through by myoui mina? or not say anything at all. let them think what they want and jeongyeon can keep her hands focused on her controller, stiffly steering bowser through the lanes.

except it can't be let go that easily. all of them had run-ins with old friends today and it's left them all confused, angry, and lost. there's nothing more dangerous or revolting than a group of teenagers that are angry and lost.

dahyun is the one who pauses the game, throwing all of them off and getting a loud and disgruntled huff from tzuyu, who was winning.

"actually, we saw mina. when she should have been in film with you." and jeongyeon swallows a lump the size of a boulder.

her entire throat feels too tight. just like earlier when she was with mina, she's finding it harder to breathe, finding it harder to forgive herself for all the shit she'd done. there's nothing she can do now. nothing.

"she left with the bathroom pass. i don't ask where people go." dahyun can sense the fear in jeongyeon's voice, and it brings her own fear back, the paralyzing feeling that had been left with her after sana stormed out of the yearbook room.

"...you know why she was gone, don't you?" chaeyoung pipes up from the enveloping silence.

jeongyeon scoffs at that, turning her eyes away from everyone in the room, "i'm not stupid."

"why don't you stop her, then? you could keep them both from getting in trouble."

the older girl whips her head around at dahyun's words, and she can finally see all the terror in her eyes. there's so much abstract pain and fear behind dahyun's eyes that it pains jeongyeon, and her resolve softens a little.

"first of all, i'm not her mother. second of all, what do you mean 'both of them'?"

tzuyu's voice is gruff when she speaks, "it's sana. sana sells to mina. hell, she sells to half the school. that's just how it is."

the information makes jeongyeon's head spin. why does tzuyu, of all people, know this? because she's the only other person who still keeps in touch with jihyo? thinking about it causes avalanches for jeongyeon's remaining brain cells to crumble down. her past best friends have all left her. sana changed entirely, nayeon can't stand her anymore, and jihyo doesn't have time for people. not after what happened.

sana thinks jihyo was the only one who knew what happened to her, but jeongyeon knew too. she was there, after all. watching and listening from a safe distance. too scared to move. too scared to abandon nayeon because of it all.

so instead of supporting sana in the split, she went running with her tail between her legs to stay with nayeon. and after all of that, nayeon didn't even want her. nayeon didn't want anything to do with her. so jeongyeon was left all alone.

that is, until mina showed up in cinema club one afternoon. seeing her made jeongyeon smile, and the younger girl liked keeping jeongyeon company. that lasted peacefully until mina decided she was still going to hang out with sana after the fallout. and then she just became utterly wrong.

something was always off with mina, so jeongyeon stopped caring whether she was there or not. and eventually jeongyeon got so used to the silence that she accepted she deserved it.

if jeongyeon was broken like this, and mina was too, then sana had to be just as fucked up.

"that can't be possible. she used to be the star soccer player--" jeongyeon's voice gets cut off.

"not anymore," chaeyoung interrupts, "she made it very clear that momo is the star. she made it sound like she'd never been the star of the team, actually. i think she's always seen momo as better than her."

"that's bullshit. sana was amazing when she played," dahyun spits. it's uncharacteristic to hear her swear so violently, but jeongyeon knows this is a touchy subject. sana and dahyun were close before... everything.

"maybe sana never saw that. when she got injured, it was probably a free out for her. to get away from it all."

all jeongyeon can do is throw out suggestions in a room full of frustration and confusion. it doesn't do much to calm all the teen angst, but god, she's trying.

they sit in silence for another 20 seconds before they all let out a collective sigh. it's too much.

dahyun unpauses the game and tzuyu wins. it's an easier loss to take than any other.

sana checks her phone finally. it's full of texts from clients who need shit. acid, weed, ecstasy. and she doesn't even want to sell right now.

she needs the money, though. so she grabs her bag, a couple of ziplocs and sheets, and shoves them all in her jacket's pockets. slips the leather on over her shoulders to protect herself from the harsh autumn winds.

sana ignores the text on her phone from jihyo. she'll deal with the bullshit later.

she gets on her bike and leaves her house behind her, shrouded in darkness and past tears.

it's dark by the time mina hears a familiar creaking outside her window. she thinks that one of these days her gutter will finally give out, or the tree branch will break itself, or maybe the tiles will fall off the roof. she's not sure which will happen first, but she guarantees that she'll know the second she hears a shriek outside.

the knocking comes soon after the creaking and she moves to her window, tripping over a bean bag chair, landing with both hands on the window.

"jesus fuck," exclaims the voice outside, and mina laughs, a giggle that barely escapes her throat.

she manages to get her lazy hands to unlock both of the hatches, opening the window and finding the screen already removed, a familiar dark haired girl vaulting through the frame and crashing into a nearby pillow. said girl huffs and turns herself around, facing mina with hair covering her eyes.

"nice landing, pilot." mina sneers, the older girl on her floor staring at her, disheveled.

"yeah, thanks, dork. really appreciated the help," sana complains, rubbing her knees and wrists, the pain in her knee beginning to throb again, "are you sober?"

mina can't help but give sana a lopsided and goofy smile, "maybe i am, maybe i'm not. wanna come find out?"

sana shakes her head. she really didn't wanna deal with high mina tonight, and luckily the girl is as clean as she can be. it's fun being around the other girl. mina makes sana feel like she still has some kind of semblance of normal. sana loves jihyo, but she serves as a reminder of the past. sana doesn't blame her for that, though. her memory is just tainted by one oblivious, bunny-toothed girl.

they're hanging out right now, while sana is here with mina, throwing her life away one minute at a time. mina was her last stop on her route, considering she texted her saying she needed "company". sana doesn't question that, simply follows the map her texts make for her, hitting every house that texts her and pays her what she asks for.

speaking of paying.

"did you need more shit? i brought extra in case, but i never know what you need."

mina's eyes trail sana's skinny body slowly, carefully, "you know what i want, though, don't you?"

"i do. and you're not getting it."

mina scoffs and plops into sana's lap, her head resting in between sana's legs. sana's hands move automatically to her hair, combing her fingers through the soft strands.

"you're so stubborn. still waiting for your princess to climb down from atop her tower?"

the way mina phrases it pisses sana off. she knows mina has been waiting for her for god knows how long, but she won't give into that. even if she wasn't hopelessly in love with nayeon, she would not have a relationship with a client. they'll all eventually use for her product and leave her in the dust. she doesn't need more abandonment issues to add onto her case file.

"i sure am." sana says blandly, her voice tired and dragging on the syllables.

"you might need to tell her about her prince, then. she still doesn't know. you won't get anywhere if you let your life go on like this." mina could ramble for hours. the good part of her brain stops her from doing this, though. that same part of her brain recognizes the boundary between her and sana. thank god.

sana gives up at this point, as she can tell from mina's words that she's not entirely sober. not like she previously thought, anyway. words don't need to be gentle with high mina. sentences need only make minimal sense.

"you don't fucking know me, mina. and what do you know about jaebum?"

the younger girl yawns and curls into sana's stomach. sana wants to throw her off and burn her shirt where mina's face touched it. it feels right.

"only what jeongyeon told me. she's not very good at keeping her mouth shut."

jeongyeon? jeongyeon wasn't supposed to know shit. the only person that knew about jaebum was jihyo, and that was that. jihyo doesn't talk to jeongyeon. what the fuck? how did she know?

"she saw it all, y'know," another yawn escapes mina's lips, her eyes fluttering shut, "you need better eyes."

sana's head cracks. snaps. pops.

she was gonna have to deal with some loose ends.

sana's knuckles are white from how hard she grips the handles on her bike. the ride home is exhausting. and cold.

nayeon tries calling her, but sana can't answer her phone and ride her bike at the same time. she'll cry later when she sees the missed call from 'sunshine'.

**Author's Note:**

> no idea how often this will update but im genuinely trying to overcome writer's block so yeehaw :D
> 
> lemme know what you think!!! n i'll see you when i next update.


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